WOODEN CHILDREN’S TOYS

Ancient wooden toys In a beautiful fairy tale by Andersen a queen who earlier was a fairy, begins to shrink from unlove: first her gloves become too big, then her dresses and then little by litter, she returns to her old world. Many things begin to shrink from unlove. Also long-lasting baroque wardrobes and chairs began to shrink when people stopped loving their curved lines, pompous shapes and painted flowers – and on their shrinking way, they reached dwarf dimensions. They saved themselves as toys. Those small, red, blue, yellow, black, white pieces of furniture, plotted and spotted, actually preserve the heritage of ancient centuries. From the history of (applied) arts they transited into ethnology in the first chapter of the history of evanescence. And, in the second chapter they have directed themselves toward the collection of rare objects, since their manufacturing material and techniques are replaced by global plastic and Chinese patterns. Together with small furniture, on that same way are also small horses, their carts, butterflies that in proto-kinetic imagination wave their wings but also move our legs and arms, equally as the little men on the marry-go-round or birds that due to the mechanism of cork and rope peck the seeds drawn on the tablet; then, the music instruments, tamburitzas and pipes. But, before they fade away as real toys, and come back in the world of applied arts, not to say souvenirs, these little objects have created a fascinating aesthetics of taming everything that existed, by following the development of technique and generally the development of mankind: so, to the repertoire of these wooden toys gradually also trains and later aeroplanes were added. Their vulnerability and effort by which they want to connect worlds is touching. From the toys that taught children about everyday life, they became toys that teach adults about the rights and the kindness of memory. Once, for sure, wooden toys were there where the children were; however, such as we know them today, they mainly inhabit Hrvatsko zagorje i.e. Prigorje regions. In somewhat different form they can be found also in Dalmatinska zagora. The centre of production is still around Marija Bistrica, especially in the villages Laz and Vidovec. Most probably has the vivid church fair, granting sale, influenced the subsistence of this small world. Writing with joy this text for the stamp by which the Croatian Post will pay international tribute to these small objects – their being entered on the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity – I recall a personal episode which is already a part of their history. It was winter 1982, Christmas was approaching, Christmas that at that time, surely, was not publicly celebrated or marked. Since I had been collecting these small wooden toys for a long time, I had a respectable quantity. I took a selection of it to the bookstore Znanje, situated in - at that time Street of Socialist Revolution, across the then Officer’s club of the Yugoslav National Army. Actually, I was given at disposal huge shop-windows of the bookshop for the exhibition. Christmas exhibition! The shop-windows were white, full of branches of evergreen trees; on them, wooden toys were hanging in the solemnity of their vivid colours, especially red. On a huge piece of hammer paper in the middle of one shop-window, the catalogue text about toys was written. It mentioned the villages of Prigorje and H.C. Andersen who is still today at he beginning of this text. On several occasions persons in uniforms entered the bookshop to check what was happening. And, since everything took place before Christmas, there could be no excuses by attributing it to the New Year. The excuse was hence of general, ethnographic nature: winter is the most favourable time for traditional crafts because there is no work in fields – thus it is also the most favourable time for exhibiting them. In the meantime, Christmas became again public holiday; wooden toys were first put on the list of the intangible heritage of the Republic of Croatia and now also on the UNESCO’s list. Thus, it is even greater pleasure for me to remember their first exhibition. From the lack of love many things get smaller. But if the love hurries after them, the dimension is lost and only proportion remains - proportion in which the one who loves is equal to what he/she loves, so nothing is too small or too big. Most probably just for the anticipation thereof, Croatian wooden toys have become an international memorial. Željka Čorak